raditi / praviti / napraviti (to make/do) | Croatian Grammar

English makes a famously slippery split between make and do — make a mistake but do your homework, make dinner but do the dishes — and learners of English suffer for it. Croatian draws the line in a completely different place, and the good news is that you do not have to reproduce the English split at all. Instead, three verbs share the territory: raditi ("do / work / be doing"), and the aspect pair praviti (impf) / napraviti (pf) ("make / produce / get done"). This page is about which of the three to reach for, and about the light-verb collocations — napraviti grešku, napraviti pauzu, donijeti odluku — where Croatian's choice of verb surprises an English speaker. The full napraviti paradigm lives on its own page, napraviti; raditi is detailed at raditi. Here we keep the conjugations compact and put the weight on usage.

The three verbs at a glance

Verb	Aspect	Present 1sg	Core sense	Signature use
raditi	imperfective	radim	do / work / be doing (process)	Što radiš? "What are you doing?"
praviti	imperfective	pravim	make / be making (process)	Pravim ručak. "I'm making lunch."
napraviti	perfective	napravim	make / do — finished result	Napravio sam ručak. "I made lunch."

Two facts organise everything below. First, praviti and napraviti are one aspect pair (process vs result of "making"); raditi is a separate imperfective whose perfective partners are napraviti or uraditi. Second — and this is the key for an English speaker — the question that decides between them is not "is this make or do?" but rather "do I mean an activity/job, or do I mean producing/finishing a thing?"

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Forget the English make/do dividing line. Ask two Croatian questions instead: (1) Is this working / being occupied with something? → raditi. (2) Is this producing or completing a concrete thing/result? → praviti (in progress) or napraviti (done). That pair of questions resolves almost every case.

raditi — "do / work / be doing"

Raditi is the verb of activity and work. It answers Što radiš? ("What are you doing?"), it means "to work / have a job" (Radim u školi — "I work at a school"), and it covers "doing" in the open-ended, in-progress sense. It is imperfective, so it never marks a finished result on its own — that is what napraviti / uraditi are for.

Compact paradigm (full table on the raditi page):

Form	raditi
present (ja / ti / on)	radim, radiš, radi
perfect (m. / f.)	radio sam / radila sam
future I	radit ću

Što radiš ovaj vikend, imaš li planove?

What are you doing this weekend, do you have plans? — open-ended 'do' → 'raditi'.

Radim od kuće tri dana u tjednu.

I work from home three days a week. — 'raditi' = have a job / work.

praviti / napraviti — "make / produce / get done"

This is the pair for producing or completing a concrete thing or result: a cake, a coffee, a plan, a mistake, a decision (with a caveat — see below). Use the imperfective praviti when the making is in progress or habitual, and the perfective napraviti when the thing is finished and now exists.

Compact paradigm (full table on the napraviti page):

Form	praviti (impf)	napraviti (pf)
present (ja / ti / on)	pravim, praviš, pravi	napravim, napraviš, napravi
perfect (m. / f.)	pravio / pravila sam	napravio / napravila sam
future I	pravit ću	napravit ću

Note: there is no *napravljati. The imperfective of napraviti is simply praviti. The passive participle is napravljen (v → vlj jotation), treated in full on the napraviti page.

Pravim večeru, bit će gotova za pola sata.

I'm making dinner, it'll be ready in half an hour. — process → imperfective 'praviti'.

Napravio sam ti sendvič, na stolu je.

I made you a sandwich, it's on the table. — finished result → perfective 'napraviti'.

raditi vs praviti/napraviti — the decision

The two camps overlap less than English make/do, so the contrast is usually clear once you ask "activity or product?". Compare the same noun under each verb:

Cijeli dan radim u kuhinji.

I've been working in the kitchen all day. — the activity/effort → 'raditi'.

Danas pravim tortu za rođendan.

Today I'm making a cake for the birthday. — producing a thing → 'praviti'.

A single sentence often needs both — the ongoing work (raditi) and the finished result (napraviti):

Cijeli tjedan radim na prezentaciji, ali je još nisam napravio do kraja.

I've been working on the presentation all week, but I still haven't finished it. — 'raditi na' (process) vs 'napraviti' (result).

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"Work on something" is raditi na + locative (radim na projektu) — never the perfective napraviti, which would mean the thing is finished. Reserve napraviti for the moment of completion.

Light-verb collocations: where the verb choice surprises you

English uses "make" and "do" as light verbs in dozens of fixed phrases (make a mistake, make a decision, take a break, do a favour). Croatian has its own set, and you must learn them as units — the verb is not always the one you would guess. All take the accusative.

With napraviti ("make / do" something):

napraviti grešku — "make a mistake"
napraviti pauzu — "take a break"
napraviti uslugu — "do (someone) a favour"
napraviti red — "sort things out / restore order"
napraviti korak — "take a step"
napraviti scenu — "make a scene"

Napravila sam grešku u izvještaju, moram je ispraviti.

I made a mistake in the report, I have to fix it. — collocation 'napraviti grešku'.

Hajde da napravimo kratku pauzu, umorni smo.

Let's take a short break, we're tired. — collocation 'napraviti pauzu'.

The exception — "make a decision" uses donijeti ("bring"), not napraviti:

This is the collocation that catches every English speaker. "Make a decision" in Croatian is donijeti odluku — literally "to bring a decision". The verb is donijeti / donositi (the same verb as "bring"), and *napraviti odluku sounds wrong to natives. The imperfective is donositi odluku / donositi odluke ("be making / making decisions").

Moramo donijeti odluku do petka, ne možemo više čekati.

We have to make a decision by Friday, we can't wait any longer. — 'donijeti odluku', not 'napraviti'.

Teško donosim odluke kad sam umorna.

I find it hard to make decisions when I'm tired. — imperfective 'donositi odluke'.

A few more "make" notions that take their own verb, not napraviti: sklopiti prijateljstvo ("make friends"), zaraditi novac ("make money"), postići dogovor / dogovoriti se ("make / reach an agreement"). When in doubt about a fixed phrase, check the collocation rather than assuming napraviti.

Common Mistakes

❌ Napravit ću na projektu sutra.

Wrong verb — 'work on' (ongoing) is 'raditi na' + locative, not the perfective 'napraviti'.

✅ Radit ću na projektu sutra.

I'll work on the project tomorrow.

❌ Moramo napraviti odluku do petka.

Wrong collocation — 'make a decision' is 'donijeti odluku' ('bring a decision').

✅ Moramo donijeti odluku do petka.

We have to make a decision by Friday.

❌ Pravim grešku i sad je gotova, ispričavam se.

Aspect clash — if the mistake is a done fact, use the perfective 'napravio/napravila sam'.

✅ Napravila sam grešku, ispričavam se.

I made a mistake, I'm sorry.

❌ Što praviš ovaj vikend?

Wrong verb — open-ended 'what are you doing/up to' is 'raditi', not 'praviti' (which means physically making something).

✅ Što radiš ovaj vikend?

What are you doing this weekend?

❌ Napravljam kavu, dođi za pet minuta.

There is no '*napravljati' — the imperfective (process) is 'pravim'.

✅ Pravim kavu, dođi za pet minuta.

I'm making coffee, come in five minutes.

Key Takeaways

Don't map English make/do onto Croatian — ask "activity/work" (→ raditi) vs "produce/finish a thing" (→ praviti / napraviti).
raditi (impf, radim) = do / work / be doing; raditi na
- locative = "work on".
praviti (impf) ↔ napraviti (pf) = make/produce — process vs finished result. There is no *napravljati.
Light-verb units take the accusative: napraviti grešku / pauzu / uslugu. Learn them whole.
"Make a decision" is the trap: donijeti odluku ("bring a decision"), never *napraviti odluku.

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